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Downer: Good morning. I just want to clear up a few silly misconceptions about the Government's election promise to bomb Indonesia and the Philippines. There's been a lot of nonsense spoken about pre-emptive strikes and I want to outline our position very plainly.

Journalist: But the Prime Minister has foreshadowed pre-emptive strikes by the defence force in the region if there is a terrorist threat to Australia. Are you now backing away from that policy?

Downer: Yes and no, Laurie, up to a point, certainly not. There will be emptive strikes if we believe them to be appropriate. But whether they'll be pre-emptive strikes, or just emptive strikes, or possibly post-emptive strikes, well, that will be a matter for cabinet to decide. Unlike the Labor Party, we are firmly committed to emption. If empting is necessary, then we are prepared to empt.

Journalist: But wouldn't that be an act of war against a neighbouring country?

Downer: Well, that's just the sort of question I'd expect from the ABC. Obviously, Australia will only bomb these places, or insert the SAS into these countries, if they ask us to. For example, if the Indonesians come to us and say, "Look, would you please flatten Surabaya?" or some such, we would be happy to oblige in a co-operative, empting way. But I am thinking much more of failed states, really.

Journalist: How would you define a failed state?

Downer: I don't want to get into hypothetical guessing games, Michelle, but Tasmania would be a failed state, for example. Not that I am saying we plan to bomb Tasmania, not at all. In fact, Labor tried that under Gareth Evans and it got them nowhere, but that's the sort of thing I mean. Or Nauru, perhaps, or the Solomons, or even Fiji. Wherever our intelligence tells us there are Islamic terrorist groups. But I don't want to speculate, frankly.

Journalist: How would you define a failed state?

Downer: Well, of course that's a very subjective judgement, Paul. Look, I failed geography at school, and politics and international relations at university, and yet now I'm the Foreign Minister of Australia. So unlike Labor, our failure policy is very clear.

In a tearful showdown with the media, the Opposition Leader, Mark Larrikin, has hit out angrily at journalists accompanying him on the campaign trail, accusing them of trying to involve his children in grubby political electioneering.

"I am fair game, but leave my kids out of it," a visibly upset Larrikin said during a stopover in Townsville. "If I want to romp with my cute and photogenic children for the television cameras, that's one thing. But demanding to know where they go to school is an outrage. They haven't even started to climb the ladder of opportunity yet."

Larrikin denied his children had been secretly booked into Sydney's prestigious King's School to take advantage of dressage lessons and the year 10 jet propulsion laboratory funded by the Government.

"Why would I send my kids there?" he said. "It doesn't make sense. King's will be ruinously expensive if we get in for three years."

Advisers travelling with the Labor leader later conceded that it was acceptable to exploit other people's children in the campaign.

"Mark has had some wonderful photo opportunities with toddlers and kindies," one said. "His readings from Goldilocks and the Three Bears have been a huge hit from Darwin to Hobart."

THE United Nations Secretary-General, Kaffe Latte, has angered President Shrub and senior American officials by describing the war in Iraq as illegal under international law.

In an unusually strong speech in New York, Latte called for urgent diplomatic moves to restore peace to the Middle East.

"In my view, it is imperative that we obtain another UN resolution immediately," he said. "This will be entirely futile and ignored by everybody, but differences between member states can be amicably discussed over a cocktail party afterwards. This is the course we have successfully taken to end the regrettable unpleasantness in the Sudan."

Later, in a keynote speech to the UN General Assembly, President Shrub did not refer directly to the Secretary-General's comments on the war but, in a clear rebuff, he urged the international community to "get on the team".

"This is a good little war," Shrub said, to vigorous applause from the delegations of Australia and the Marshall Islands. "It's a war, and it's a good one. The best we got. We're gonna play hardball with these guys and every hit's gonna be a home run for freedom. So, hey, let's step up to the plate and kick butt."

After his UN speech, the President returned to the US election campaign, defending his controversial Vietnam War record at a brunch in Emphysema Springs, Montana, with the Bible-Believing Defence Contractors of America.

"I served proudly as a fighter pilot in the Texas Air National Guard," he said. "They tried, but not once in the entire war did the Vietcong carry out a successful air strike on Dallas or Houston. The facts speak for themselves."